Comments Elsewhere

In which Nazi fucks attempt to use a spurious copyright claim as an instrument of censorship. #NaziPunksFuckOff “C4SS UPDATE: Both the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) web site and the Students for a Stateless Society web site are down because of a spurious copyright complaint to our web host. When S4SS organizers chose to disavow bigoted anti-Muslim remarks from an EU student and conscientiously disassociate the network from him, they quoted his remarks. He has responded with a DMCA takedown notice on the grounds that his remarks on Facebook are somehow supposedly copyrighted material which can’t be used without his permission. Our sites are now offline. We are working on getting this resolved.”

To-day @ radgeek.com: http://radgeek.com/gt/2013/09/21/john-bush-interview-scratching-by/ Interview on Scratching By, Urban Homesteading, and Black-and-Red Markets, with John Bush of Rise Up Radio. “And by ‘libertarian,’ we mean ‘Anarchist.’ — We mean fully consistent libertarianism, that’s based on a practice of radical direct action, on cultural change, on nonviolent social organizing, not based on trying to elect Republican candidates, or run people for office, or lobby the government. . . . These are things that are best addressed, not by means of throwing ballots in boxes, not by means of political parties or trying to pass new laws. Because it doesn’t take any kind of social control to try and improve the lives of ordinary people; it takes social *movements* . . . people working together outside of the state. . . .”

To-day Rad Geek People’s Daily [radgeek.com]: http://radgeek.com/gt/2013/09/20/hubbard-vs-freedom/ Mike Hubbard vs. Freedom of Speech & Freedom of the Press “. . . But his efforts to enforce his preferred version of events, by means of legal force, is a loathsome attempt at censorship. It is no less preposterous, and even more contemptible, than if he went around challenging his critics to duels. . . .”

http://nypost.com/2013/09/18/the-dude-abides-in-syria-mess/ O.K., I have no problem looking to fictions, including Coen brothers movies, in order to explain world affairs and US foreign policy. But this is an inane bit of neo-conservative wish-fulfillment. The fact is that the U.S. foreign policy apparatus constantly imagines itself as The Dude, but constantly acts like Walter: in the end, everything in the plot ends up moving around its inane scheming, short-sighted fuck-ups, chaotic attempts at retaliation and propensity for unhinged, insane levels of violence.

Happy International Ignore the Constitution Day! http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/09/17/international_ignore/ “The practical difficulty with our government has been, that most of those who have administered it, have taken it for granted that the Constitution, as it is written, was a thing of no importance; that it neither said what it meant, nor meant what it said; that it was gotten up by swindlers, (as many of its authors doubtless were,) who said a great many good things, which they did not mean, and meant a great many bad things, which they dared not say; that these men, under the false pretence of a government resting on the consent of the whole people, designed to entrap them into a government of a part; who should be powerful and fraudulent enough to cheat the weaker portion out of all the good things that were said, but not meant, and subject them to all the bad things that were meant, but not said. And most of those who have administered the government, have assumed that all these swindling intentions were to be carried into effect, in the place of the written Constitution. Of all these swindles, the treason swindle is the most flagitious. It is the most flagitious, because it is equally flagitious, in principle, with any; and it includes all the others. It is the instrumentality by which all the others are mode effective. A government that can at pleasure accuse, shoot, and hang men, as traitors, for the one general offence of refusing to surrender themselves and their property unreservedly to its arbitrary will, can practice any and all special and particular oppressions it pleases. “The result — and a natural one — has been that we have had governments, State and national, devoted to nearly every grade and species of crime that governments have ever practised upon their victims; and these crimes have culminated in a war that has cost a million of lives; a war carried on, upon one side, for chattel slavery, and on the other for political slavery; upon neither for liberty, justice, or truth. And these crimes have been committed, and this war waged, by men, and the descendants of men, who, less than a hundred years ago, said that all men were equal, and could owe neither service to individuals, nor allegiance to governments, except with their own consent. “… Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. IN EITHER CASE IT IS UNFIT TO EXIST.” – Lysander Spooner (1867, 1870), from “NO TREASON” nos. 2 and 6.

is setting up a (mostly) Southern tour for ALL Distro / the Students for a Stateless Society network this fall. Four dates confirmed so far, waiting to hear back on a fifth.

It’s really kind of obvious in retrospect, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. http://laughingsquid.com/bluegrass-cover-of-metallicas-heavy-metal-song-enter-sandman/

“the worst argument for a syria strike is the one everybody’s making: look, if the president draws a red line and there are no consequences, he looks feckless, etc; american credibility is at stake around the world. that’s just macho super-power bullshit. if it’s a terrible idea to do it, or it is liable to have disastrous results, or there’s no clear reason to do it, and you do it anyway because of some shit you talked last year, you are really not making policy on a reasonable basis. ” – Crispin Sartwell http://eyeofthestorm.blogs.com/eye_of_the_storm/2013/09/incredible-credibility.html

“I have a secret objection to the viewpoint expressed in your post. So in lieu of explaining what my objection actually is, here’s a series of assertions about theories of competition copied out of the Grundrisse.” http://radgeek.com/gt/2013/09/11/we-will/#comment-20130912204321 #WellImConvinced